Countdown to the 2012 Presidential Election

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

With the presidential election just nine days away, let’s use this thread to declare which candidate we hope will win, why we want him or her to win, and what we forecast as the outcome of the voting.

I’ll start by declaring that I am rooting for Ma to be elected to a second term. I have very high regard for Tsai, and consider her excellently qualified to hold the office of president. If only she weren’t running for the DPP, I might even be inclined to root for her as the better of two very good contenders. But in my opinion, it will be far better for Taiwan if Ma remain in the Presidential Office than if Tsai takes over from him.

I do not adhere to either side of the blue-green divide. In previous presidential elections, I rooted in turn for LTH in 1996, CSB in 2000 and 2004 (the first time enthusiastically, the second time as the lesser of two evils, with two very unappealing tickets to choose between), and MYJ in 2008. Each time, the candidate I have rooted for has won, so perhaps that is a good omen for Ma in 2012.

I believe that the KMT and DPP have much of a muchness to offer in sum of policy agenda, except in the all-important area of cross-strait affairs. I don’t think there will be much revision of most basic national development policies if governing power changes hands. The new government will redeck existing policies in new names and slogans, creating a big burden for people like me who will have to translate it all into English; but I think most of the changes will be merely cosmetic, with very little difference in substance.

My main concern about Tsai winning is that she will steer the wrong course in cross-strait policy-making, and that whatever her own judgment tells her is the right course to take on key cross-strait policy issues, persuasive figures within her party will push her onto a less rational, more perilous course.

Maintaining a sound and constructive cross-strait relationship is of absolutely fundamental importance to Taiwan, and failure in this area would have more devastating consequences for Taiwan than failure in every other area of policy-making added together. It was the awful mishandling of cross-strait relations under CSB that reaped such damaging effects for Taiwan, dragging it down to the bottom of Asia’s growth league, below some of even the region’s most dysfunctional economies. There was not much wrong with his administration’s core economic and other main national development policies; it was just the wrongness of his stance toward China that undermined everything else and cost Taiwan so dearly.

In contrast to how things were under CSB, I am almost fully satisfied with the gains achieved in cross-strait relations under Ma’s presidency, and the benefits that these have yielded for Taiwan, helping it to become one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and to come through the 2008 global financial crisis and recession in much better shape than any other economy at a similar level of development. It’s hard to see how Ma’s performance in this regard could have been bettered, and I would like to have another four years of the same.

In summary: I don’t think it will necessarily be a disaster for Taiwan if Tsai wins, but it will surely be safer if Ma remains in office. I expect that a sufficient proportion of non-partisan voters feel the same way, and that enough of them will cast their votes for Ma to ensure that he wins the election by two or three percentage points.

Anyone else?

2

Average GDP growth in Taiwan was higher under CSB than Ma, and CSB had to fight tooth and nail for economic reforms. He was stifled at every turn, but the economy averaged about 4% growth per year including one major recession while under Ma it has averaged just 3.5% including one recession. Ma has had every advantage politically and still could only manage 5% growth last year. The DPP beat the average KMT GDP growth rate 6 of their 8 years in office. Additionally, Taiwan was hurt much more by the techbubble recession than by the GFC. During the techbubble firms like TSMC topped out at over 200nt/share, before the GFC they were at about the same level they are at now e.g., TSMC around 70nt/share.

3

Im going with Prez Ma. And I think he will sqeek by and win.

4

I prefer Tsai because while I agree with most of Omni is saying about the economics of Taiwan’s relations with China, man does not live on bread alone. Taiwan must maintain a separate political identity from China for us to continue to enjoy the free society that was won at such a high cost.

Besides, I think China has no real choice but to continue its economic policies toward Taiwan even if Tsai is elected. If cuts Taiwan off, it will have no hope of persuading the Taiwanese that the economic rewards of acquiescence to China are worth cost in the political freedo

That said, I think Ma will win although it will be close. Ma is Taiwan’s greatest political brand. He’s been in public life for 30 years and his image is overwhelmingly positive if a bit prissy. People believe and trust him when he says that he won’t make any political deals with China. Voters will do the political calculus and decide that they can endure four more years of Ma to extract more economic goodies out of China without any political concessions.

I sure hope they are right. His behavior during Chen Yun-lin’s first visit was worryingly undemocratic as his long record of having opposed every democratic reform of the last 30 years and his authoritarian predilection for ruling by law much as the benevolent dictators of Singapore do.

Finally, Tsai is running on a center-left campaign whose theme is ‘realizing fairness and justice.’ No one has ever won an election in Taiwan running on an even mildly left wing platform. Support for central social justice issues such as a nuclear-free Taiwan is tepid at best. For Tsai to win on this platform would mean that the underlying politics of Taiwan have shifted to the left. I don’t have any sense that this has happened. Therefore I believe that the unbeaten Ma will prevail over Tsai and her untested ‘new labor’ politics.

I’ll be delighted if I am proved wrong.

5

Double post

6

That is absolutely incorrect, sir!

If you want to compare economic growth performance under the CSB and MYJ administrations, you need to make a proper comparison. Bare numbers, divorced from their setting, do not tell more than one part of the story - though even the barest of bare numbers tell in favour of Ma over Chen.

The facts of the matter are that, after the relatively shallow recession of the early 2000s, the CSB administration coincided with a period of galloping world GDP growth, while MYJ’s has coincided with the worst economic slump that the world has experienced since the end of WW2.

Since a new administration takes office in May, almost halfway through the year, we must exclude the figures from the changeover years from consideration, because it would be impossible to divide that year’s performance between each side of the transfers of power. So for CSB’s terms, we must consider 2001~2007, and for MYJ’s term, 2009~2011. The growth rate of world GDP was approximately 4.3% during 2001~2007, versus only 3.0% during 2009~2011. Hence, these numbers show clearly that Ma’s administration has had to contend with much more unfavourable global economic growth conditions than CSB ever faced.

Yet in spite of the much more difficult external conditions prevailing during Ma’s term in office, Taiwan still achieved an average annual economic growth rate of 4.7% during 2009~2011. That included the year in which the global economy experienced its sharpest slump since the 1930s. Whereas under CSB, Taiwan’s annual economic growth rate averaged only 4.1% during 2001~2007. That is: 4.7% to Ma versus 4.1% to Chen, the former in mostly benign conditions, the latter in mostly very adverse conditions. A stark contrast, indeed!

So even if we look at the bare figures alone, it is evident that Taiwan’s economy has performed far, far better under MYJ than under CSB. It has improved from the worst performing to the best performing Asian NIE. There’s really no arguing against that!

7

Despite looking like a Chinese Alan Partridge (although probably even less democratic in outlook than Norwich’s finest) I have no doubt that Ma will win because ‘he’s very handsome’* and ‘he can speak English very good, good for Taiwan international image.’* I would prefer Tsai to win mainly because I find it hard to imagine anyone being more obsequious or with less backbone than Ma and eagerly sliding towards the CCP is not something which I could ever support on humanitarian grounds.

*standard Taiwanese non-thinking female voter’s response

8

Real GDP Growth Taiwan:
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
5.8% -1.7% 5.3% 3.7% 6.2% 4.7% 5.4% 6%
2008 2009 2010 2011*
0.7% -1.9% 10.8% 5.4%

Read more: gfmag.com/gdp-data-country-r … z1iaPQUHA1

2000 to 2007=4.425%

2008 to 2011=3.75%

Under CSB grow was approximately 16% higher than under Ma. The CIA factbook has negative growth for 2001 at 2.2% making it a deeper recession than 2009, although these figures are a little different. They show that the 2001 recession was roughly equivalent to the 2009 recession. The CIA factbook also has growth higher for CSB years than Ma, regardless of its quoted deeper recession. They also show that 6 of CSB’s years had much greater growth than Ma’s average. They are the unavoidable facts.

People crapped on CSB’s economic management but in reality his economic record stands up pretty well to Ma.

Average unemployment under Ma=4.95% Under CSB=4.3%

9

Fox, I have already explained why the growth rates for 2000 and 2008 should not be included in computation of the average growth rates achieved by Chen’s and Ma’s administrations, since the economy was under the governance of both parties during each of those years (the new administrations having been sworn into office almost halfway through the year on May 20). Hence, the KMT should take a large part of the credit for the roaring growth rate of 5.7% in 2000, and the DPP a large part of the blame for the meagre 0.7% growth rate in 2008. But since it is all but impossible to fairly allocate the credit and blame between the two administrations in each of those years, they obviously ought to be excluded from the reckoning of each administration’s performance. Only the years in which one party or the other was in power from beginning to end should be taken into account. Hence my numbers, which are accurate and cannot be challenged on any reasonable grounds, while your numbers are grossly skewed and misleading.

10

Tsai

self government and basic rights

Ma

11

Omni, you are forgetting that by 2009, China was Taiwan’s biggest trading partner and was pushing the largest stimulus package ever seen in the world across its economy. Taiwan benefited enormously from the 10-11% growth rate on the other side of the strait. Your assertion that the world experienced the sharpest economic drop since the 1930s is misleading. China did quite well, and for many countries, such as Canada, the recession was far milder than the one in the early 1980s.

That Taiwan benefited enormously from China’s stable growth is evident from next year’s GDP projections which have been sliding continuously since China itself started slowing in the fall.

I’ll also add that the KMT, with their absolute control of government have also been able to boost gdp with massive infrastructure spending.

The social costs of the economic downturn were also offset by the fact Taiwan still has a large agricultural sector (many workers who lost jobs simply returned to their family farms), high savings rate among families, and relatively low cost of living; all factors that have nothing to do with the Ma admin policies, nor any other to be fair about it.

If next year’s growth is 3.8%, as now predicted, then growth will average 4.2% over Ma’s term to date (assuming he wins the presidency). In essence tying that of Chen’s 4.1%. Which means the numbers are a pure mugs game.

The real issue today is rising social inequality, unaffordable housing, poor job opportunities for young people, and shrinking wages not gdp growth. 43% of workers now make less than NT30,000 a month.

Sorry for the long post, but any notion that Taiwan is not still on the long ugly slide to greater inequality and stagnating wages and living standards (as it has been since the late 90s) strikes me as risible. There’s still the same over-reliance on exports, the same bubbling property market, the same poor environmental legislation and over-development of nice areas, the same inability to get even the most basic urban regeneration projects underway or reform the education system or breathe new sustainable life into the agricultural system, the same lip service to developing the domestic economy (beyond tourism) and bringing high end manufacturing back to Taiwan and expanding renewable energy sources, the same problem with major companies not preparing for an eventual change of leadership, and so on.

It’s not a pretty picture and muddling along and making piecemeal changes as the Ma admin has done these past 4 years is not going to cut it.

12

That’s the most desperate fiddle I’ve seen for a long time Omni. Chen’s years while much derided and interfered with by the KMT were by enlarge better than Ma’s own time in office, economically. The same was true for Chen’s term as Major of Taipei. The reality is right there in the figures not your desperate fudge. Besides which it is well known that when Chen came to power the KMT did all in its power to drive the economy into the ground so he succeeded despite the KMT’s efforts. The reality is that Taiwan’s fortunes are linked to China’s economically. Almost 10% of Taiwan’s available workforce started working in China under Chen and investment of hundreds of billions in China took place. Chen’s years of economic success over Ma were the result of allowing that to happen something the KMT had resisted under Lee Tung Hui. Chen also had large infrastructure projects still underway during his term. Ma had the Taipei World Floral Exhibition where he won the award for biggest Pansy in show. Chen was a junk yard dog, a mover and a shaker. Ma lives off his political criminality in the 70s and 80s. Even his own father didn’t think he was up to it.

13

Chen seems to have been an alright Prez, but if he couldve kept his paws outa the cookie jar. The fact that others had their hands in the cookie jars in the past as well doesnt mean that he should not have been more circumspect. Politicians are all at least somewhat bent (if not downright crooked) but looks like Chennies game of chess wasnt up to par.

They are all playing the game, but some are better then others.

14

[quote=“Mucha Man”] There’s still the same over-reliance on exports, …

It’s not a pretty picture and muddling along and making piecemeal changes as the Ma admin has done these past 4 years is not going to cut it.[/quote]

By that, you see, you are giving the impression of completely closing your eyes to what the Ma administration has been achieving in its stewardship of the economy. Let me put you straight.

One of this administration’s core economic policies has been to promote domestic demand as a driver of economic growth.

The 2008 recession demonstrated vividly to Taiwan’s economic planners how dangerous it is for Taiwan to rely so heavily on exports for its growth. The 2000 recession told the same story, but the previous government failed to learn its lessons and continued on the same old path as before.

The current government has been constantly emphasizing how it is pulling out all the stops to ensure that Taiwan’s growth is driven by what it calls “the twin engines of domestic demand and export” rather than by the single engine of export as in the past. And it has been very successful – actually quite remarkably successful – in achieving this.

Take a look at this report to see for yourself. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see that, in 2010, domestic demand contributed 78% of Taiwan’s economic growth, versus 22% contributed by exports. In 2006, the respective ratios were 17% from domestic demand, 83% from exports; in 2007, 22% and 78% respectively. The 2010 figure represents a quite extraordinary achievement in correcting the economy’s core imbalance.

Equally important, real growth of private investment was more than 35% in 2010, the highest in 45 years. One of the reasons for this success is that the Ma administration has been working harder and more effectively to promote investment in Taiwan than any administration before it. And because the government has done so much to create a more attractive investment environment in Taiwan, the investment is indeed pouring in.

So it is evident that the Ma administration has done a brilliant job in running the economy, and has not just been muddling along as you allege.

Believe me, I have absolutely no partisan axe to grind. I am not a supporter of either party. I look at the facts objectively and dispassionately in assessing the performance of each government. As someone who has worked for the top policy makers in both KMT and DPP administrations for the past two decades, I am closely familiar with the true picture, and I have no doubt at all that the Ma administration has been hugely successful in improving the balance of Taiwan’s economy and creating a much healthier outlook for it than it has had at any time for at least two decades. The future actually looks very rosy, as confirmed in assessments by the IMF, World Bank, international think tanks, and all other authoritative independent observers. It is doing Taiwan a disservice to misrepresent it as otherwise.

There is much, much more that I would like to write about this, to paint a fuller picture of the positive directions and results of the Ma administration’s policies for anyone who might be misled by Fox et al’s rather shallow attempts to distort the facts. But I have to get on with translating the national development plan for 2012, so I don’t have any more time for posting here now. I hope you’ll get a chance to look at this plan (here in Chinese): it makes very impressive reading, and reinforces my confidence in what that government has been doing and what I hope it will be given the chance to continue doing.

15

[quote]Take a look at this report to see for yourself. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see that, in 2010, domestic demand contributed 78% of Taiwan’s economic growth, versus 22% contributed by exports. In 2006, the respective ratios were 17% from domestic demand, 83% from exports; in 2007, 22% and 78% respectively. The 2010 figure represents a quite extraordinary achievement in correcting the economy’s core imbalance.
[/quote]

That is pretty amusing Omni. The investment in Taiwan in 2010 was due to opening up Taiwan to foreign direct investment from China. The increase in domestic demand came from Chinese buying up Taiwanese assets and investment in Taiwan’s export sector --tourism and electronics. The policy is to give China some soverignty in Taiwan which it hasn’t had in the past. It is not a picture of increased consumption by Taiwanese residents driving domestic demand. It is a foreign state driving domestic demand for a political end game. As anyone in the tourism sector will tell you, the investment is vertically integrated to return benefits to China and rich Taiwanese turncoats. You cannot be seriously thinking that the Chinese investment is not for export purposes. That is what Taiwan does. The horrorfying fact there is how little the export sector contributed to growth. If domestic demand were driven by a revolution in the banking, insurance, and finance sectors this might be of great benefit to Taiwan. Taiwan has the money and is in the position to do well in those sectors but it has been essentially ignored by successive governments because of ownership problems over Taiwan wealth something the KMT is at the heart of.

I hope you didn’t translate that giddy report you referred us to above about foreign investment in Taiwan. It read like a child’s lunchbox. I especially liked the bit about the little tigers and dragons.

16

Hi Fox. Glad to see you are looking in on us!

Here’s Tsai’s cogent response to the NYT on this topic:

[quote]Q: As an outsider looking in, life in Taiwan looks pretty good: you have double-digit economic growth, low inflation and relations with China have never been more stable. Why are you running for president and what would you do differently from the incumbent if elected?

A: Tsai Ing-wen: Well 10 percent GDP growth last year doesn’t mean much because that was 2010 figure. But in 2009, the growth rate was actually minus -2 percent, so it‘s a rebound. So it doesn’t mean we did very well in 2010. And this year the growth rate is 4.5 percent, and they continue to lower the figure. And secondly, the growth rate doesn’t mean job opportunity here because when you are calculating the growth rate, there is a very important element in that, and that is our exports. And half of our exports are actually manufactured somewhere else, not here. So people are looking for jobs here. And thirdly, with this relationship with China and mismanagement of the economic policies, the housing prices are going up and up and normally people just can’t afford a place to stay in the city, especially here in Taipei. So despite your talking about the inflation rate, the real problem is housing that we’re facing. So the wealth gap, housing prices and lack of jobs are the problems facing Taiwan and the government and the people here.[/quote]

She makes several important points that we have not made:

  1. growth rate includes exports and since exports are not from Taiwan the growth rate is not translating into job growth
  2. So Taiwan’s growth under Ma has not been felt by ordinary people.
  3. Housing prices rising and wealth gap widening
17

More of the usual bosh from Fox that isn’t worth responding to, even if I had all the time in the world for doing so. I’ll be charitable in assuming that he typed it with a big grin on his face, knowing well what arrant nonsense it is, but hoping nonetheless that he could pull the wool over some less-informed people’s eyes and snatch a cheeky run for the team he’s batting for. I wouldn’t want to do him the discredit of assuming that he really believes in such gush, any more than it’s spouted in true belief by the pestilential politicians and pandering pundits he’s parroting.

As for Tsai’s rather muddled account to the NYT (Isn’t there anyone in DPP headquarters who could do a better job of writing it for her? When I was working for her in government, she used to have some pretty smart people providing this kind of material for her), I would just like to point out that:

(1) A 10% growth rate following a 2% contraction doesn’t represent a good performance? Huh? I though she had at least an elementary grasp of economics, but now I’m no longer so sure.

(2) The government has been steadily reducing Taiwan’s unemployment rate month after month since 2009. It now stands at just over 4%, a figure that almost any other country in the world would kill for. In Europe and North America, unemployment rates are touching double digits and climbing. And Taiwan’s unemployment rate is just half of the global average of 8.4%. It’s pretty hard for an opposition party to make political capital for itself out of a situation like that, and Tsai does a very poor job of trying.

(3) Half of Taiwan’s exports are most certainly NOT manufactured elsewhere. Where on earth did Tsai pluck that idea from. Taiwan’s export figures show the export value of goods and services produced in Taiwan and Taiwan alone, not by Taiwanese factories in China, Southeast Asia, and all the other locations where Taiwanese businesses have been carrying out their very successful global deployment. A lot of Taiwan’s exports are high-end components that will be put together with lower-end parts at their export destinations and then shipped on as final products to markets elsewhere. But that is another matter entirely, and a highly positive feature of Taiwan’s economy to boot.

(4) Although it is true that some young people find it hard to afford to buy their own homes at current market prices, over 80% of Taiwanese households already own their own homes. That is one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world. And many of those young people whose incomes are insufficient to buy the kind of luxury housing they aspire to actually come from well-off families that own more than one home, and can expect to be given a home by their parents when they get married. For the tiny percentage of Taiwanese who do not already own a home, truly cannot afford to buy one (hardly a problem outside Taipei, since it’s easy enough to find a comfortable and perfectly adequate taofang for just a million NT or less in most of Taiwan, even in many parts of New Taipei City), and cannot hope to be given one, the government is actively carrying out plans to build affordable housing, offer easily obtainable low-interest or interest-free loans, and even provide rental subsidies. Is it really such a vital, fundamental, God-given right that everyone should be able to purchase their own home rather than being satisfied with just renting one while they wait for their own or the market situation to present them with a better opportunity to buy? No, I do not think so. Ask Guy in Taiwan about that - he has a very sensible take on it. Rents here are dirt cheap and affordable by absolutely anyone with the gumption to get or make employment for himself. It is not a terrible tragedy for a society when one in five of its members has to live at least temporarily in rented accommodation rather than buying their own home.

18

[quote]More of the usual bosh from Fox that isn’t worth responding to, even if I had all the time in the world for doing so. I’ll be charitable in assuming that he typed it with a big grin on his face, knowing well what arrant nonsense it is, but hoping nonetheless that he could pull the wool over some less-informed people’s eyes and snatch a cheeky run for the team he’s batting for. I wouldn’t want to do him the discredit of assuming that he really believes in such gush, any more than it’s spouted in true belief by the pestilential politicians and pandering pundits he’s parroting.
[/quote]

[quote]Hi Fox. Glad to see you are looking in on us!
[/quote]

Hello Mr. Feiren. Just making sure everything is in order and Omni-types aren’t planting seeds of doubt in the true believers.

I don’t need to parrot pundits and politicians Omni; I can see for myself. Please open your eyes before you are damned.The biggest foreign investor in Taiwan is the Carribean, which has for years acted as a conduit for Chinese capital to flow into Taiwan. The Carribean is Taiwan’s biggest direct investor and has been for as long as I can remember. Investment growth in Taiwan came predominantly from that source. So besides direct investment from China there was also a big jump in Chinese direct investment through the Carribean. Carribean money is a well known proxy for Chinese money. This money has three main sources 1) money from China through Hong Kong into Taiwan, money from Hong Kong into Taiwan, Taiwan money taken offshore to the Carribean and repatriated as direct investment when the timing was considered right. It all goes into growing domestic consumption; however, it is this massive spike in foreign investment that allowed for an increased percentage of domestic consumption in GDP growth. That investment, however, was into the export sector – they were tourism, financials, and electronics manufacturing. The financial investment was because China has offered preferential treatment for Taiwan to export financial services to China.

19

Omni, a few points. One, I was not claiming that there have been no positive developments. It simply wasn’t the focus of my criticism. I think a number of positive macro policies have been put in place. Deepening trade relations with India and Japan, encouraging manufacturing away from China, restructuring the petrochemical industry, acknowledging that China’s restructuring is not going to benefit Taiwan that much (except perhaps the financial industry), creating a flight triangle between Japan, Korea and Taipei, and so on. Your focus on GDP growth was the issue and I still think you generalize too much.

A 10% growth rate after a massive contraction is not a great indicator because growth is based on the previous level. So it wasn’t 10% growth from a normal level of economic activity but from an incredibly depressed base. Even an economy as massive as the US’s was able to grow by 8% after the recession in the 80s.

Furthermore, as I said, Taiwan was in the enviable position of having its largest trading partner going crazy with the largest stimulus package ever seen on earth.

Tsai is absolutely correct in what she said.

I know. But we’ve been hearing this for years. But according to Commonwealth magazine most domestic growth has been fueled by tourism. Which is great of course but again we benefited by having the Chinese economy doing well, and by that government interested in lending a hand.

But if you are telling me we are on a sane and sustainable path with tourism I will say you are crazy. The focus is on numbers, and the hell with the environment. There is no serious attention paid to what the limits of tourism are or developing scenic areas in a rational and sustainable way. Which is why I say that the policies are not looking to me very positively.

As for the CEPD report. Had a quick look (thanks Google translate :laughing:). The plan for increasing the domestic economy looks remarkably like every other. How much success have we had with wage growth, or urban renewal? None at all. Lots with accelerating infrastructure though. Yeah, more concrete poured over Taiwan!

Come on. These are the same sorry promises of every year. I’ve been reading these reports for a long time and they strike me as akin to the pictures you get at restaurants of the meal to come. Somehow the reality is always a lot duller and less filling.

20

No, Fox, you’re wrong again. Completely and utterly wrong.

Look up some of the studies on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Taiwan. You will see, for example, that “the United States has been the largest source of foreign investments in Taiwan” followed by investment “from the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and other off-shore havens in Central America, [which] should also be largely attributed to US multinationals.” British territories in Central America have traditionally been used as “conduits of mostly US investments.” That is a very well known fact, and I cannot imagine where you fished up that story about such investment originating in China, though it would hardly surprise me if the DPP and its media have been spreading such disinformation.

There has been a trickle of investment from China since the Ma administration partially lifted restrictions on it. That investment, like any other inward FDI, is very precious to Taiwan’s industrial development and the creation of those all-important jobs that you don’t seem to attach any value to. Unfortunately, it is still little more than a trickle, since it’s strictly limited to a small number of safe industries. The flow of investment from overseas Taiwanese businesses who have got rich in China is actually much greater thus far.

However, thanks to the improvement of Taiwan’s investment environment achieved under Ma (take a look at Taiwan’s rise in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey if you don’t have any idea about that), there are very hopeful prospects that the inflow of investment from China will increase in the future, perhaps as much as or even more than the increase of inflows from the US, Japan, Europe, and overseas Taiwanese businesses. It’s all good, and will all help enhance Taiwan’s prosperity, create more and better quality jobs, and push up the ordinary working man’s income. I can’t quite understand what you could object to about that.